Good Morning-First Summer Sunday

  Happy Summer! 

    Here in the Ozarks on the lake summer has arrived for sure this week-very hot and humid with the temperatures in the high 90's.  We are getting missed by the rain chances so far, am needing to water my perennials early each morning recently. Lots in bloom again-so pretty and the butterflies are loving the garden

  I took a few photos of the flowers-so pretty right now.  

    I am very unhappy though with my latest camera-I hadn't realized that the zoom feature does not work-all it does is distort everything, close up photos not too bad but in full sun does not take good photos. Sooo I will be needing to look for another camera soon. Will wait  a bit as both our cars needed a little work done to them this month, and I have to go back to the dentist-ugh, I ended up with an infection-the day after I stopped taking the pills (2 weeks of antibiotics) the pain is back-ugh. They can't seem to find anything in x rays so far either.

Just beginning to bloom-so excited when I saw these-I bought rooted plants last year

Larry has his "toys" out ready to work on stuff-too hot right now though

Enjoy your new week

   

  

Sunday Post-Lake Views Butterflies & Grilling

  Hello Friends,

    I think I will be popping in on Sundays for a post.

   Wow, we can't get over how very very busy it is on the lake today. Usually Friday late and most of the day on Saturdays are bonkers, but today (Sunday) it is beyond bonkers out there.

  The weather is perfect, not too hot but full sunshine. Thinking some are enjoying the day before school begins. Next week will be craziness with the shootout race boats which raises money for charities, and the following Labor Day weekend-which I expect to be total craziness. It does make me nervous with the loud noises and too close to our boat and dock.

  Today, for our main meal at 2 pm I decided to fire up our charcoal weber grill. I made up foil packets again lined inside with parchment paper and filled up with veggies. Mini potatoes cut in half, sweet peppers, onions, fresh mushrooms, zucchini, bok choy chunks, and small tomato halves.

  I decided to grill up chunks of chicken breast for faster hot grilling. I spiced it heavily with Mrs. Dash (no salt) lemon pepper For dipping we mixed a ground mustard with Bunster's mildly hot honey which was eucalyptus honey infused with hot peppers. That went perfectly with the grilled chicken.  I don't remember if I shared this company with you before. I buy it online but if you live in or near a large city you may find their hot sauce products. They are available in other countries as well. All natural products only are bottled up. Made in Australia-we love their hot sauces.

  Those plants in front are calendula, I only had a few seeds that made it from a big down pour we had a few months ago-I have been harvesting the flowers, drying them now, and will use them in my handmade soap-I love calendula soap-so nice for the skin.

I made up three different veggie packets and then served them all together in a bowl

A couple days ago I made up a big jar of my Grandma's 3 Bean Salad-I used Splenda in place of the sugar, and I used avocado and a little olive oil.

  I am noticing that during the hottest part of the day is when I see the butterflies on my perennials that I planted for them. Early mornings though I see the hummingbirds enjoying the flowers-makes me happy.

  I haven't been able to get a good photo of a butterfly with it's wings open til today.

  A couple days ago though, there were several different types of butterflies including a couple monarchs-I was Sooo excited to see them. Wasn't able to get good photos, but my perennial garden is in full bloom now except for the pineapple mint-which is huge but still no little red flowers as of yet. You can see the petunias are still doing well as is the lemongrass plant. I need to cut and dry more of those lemongrass leaves

This butterfly plant was really tiny when I planted it this spring To the right is the last of  Larry's Grandpa's shallots that he brought back from Israel, they don't seem to like this Missouri soil, so far they like their new home here.

Behind the zinnia, is orange mint that has gone crazy-I will dig some of this up this early fall and plant it for ground cover in other areas. The chocolate mint has gone crazy too. I think different mints will make great ground covers-so wanting to get rid of the grass here.

  

     The large bushy plant in back is the pineapple mint. It always amazes me how large it will grow from such a tiny plant. It is an annual. I have been waiting for the red flowers to appear.

Lake views this past week

  The reflections on the water were amazing one morning early and you can see the boat is on the new lift, now to get this dock finished.

This morning-early

We both loved the espresso dark chocolate keto churned ice cream I had made, so last week I churned up another batch.  Will be serving it up tonight

Happy new week 

T Stands for Tuesday

 Hello Everyone, and welcome to this week's T with our hostess Bleubeard and Elizabeth. Friends gather together with a drink related photo-link in my sidebar.

 How has your week been?  We ended up with two days of summer on Friday and Saturday. Mid 80's f both days but it came with strong winds-so no burning for me-I have lots of that to do, or much weeding either do to allergies running crazy outdoors with the winds. It was beautiful though and we enjoyed sitting on the deck with friends.

  These were good friends from near our woods property and they came out to visit and to do some fishing. It was a bit early for catching crappie, but it was good to be able to just sit and talk with friends. We are very isolated here.

  I did finish cleaning and organizing my craft room, listed books in my Etsy shop, and found hand dyed blouses with annatto that I will be listing and also "vintage" hand knitted sweaters that my Mom made us girls when we were very young. They are too nice to take to a resale shop. I posted a video here  of my craft room This is a much much smaller room than I had before but I was not leaving anything behind just yet-smiles. Many of you have seen this when I first moved to the lake.

  Saturday evening I sat down for a watercolor practice, and Sunday morning I finished it.  I did the squirrel first and then looked in the book for more trees, added stamped acorns.  I used inks and watercolors.

 This was fun using watercolors, watercolor inks, and a stamp  I will fold this one in half and use it for slow mail I would like to try the squirrel again.

  I grabbed the camera Saturday when I went to check the mailbox, the redbuds are almost finished with flowering and I hadn't grabbed a photo yet-it's been raining here most every day for a couple of weeks.

  Lilacs Just started blooming

The creeping phlox-an animal took the third plant,  wish I would have bought two tubs of these-really nice older plants.

   I was so thrilled to see this iris blooming-it came from my Mom's garden, they are short and will bloom spring and fall. Didn't know if they would make it, all the bulbs I brought over the woods home a couple years ago are growing good this year-loving all the rain.

 

   For my beverage share I grabbed this decaf coffee like tea.  and I grabbed this handmade pottery cup from the cabinet, one I bought a few years ago at Fiber U-Large but light weight.

Early sunrise

Happy T and enjoy your new week

T Stands for Tuesday & Iris's Blooming, New Painting

  Happy T everyone,
  You are most welcome to join us with our hostess Bleubeard and Elizabeth for T  just show a drink related photo in your post.

  If you caught my post yesterday, you saw I was playing with colored pencils. I also found in my stash a small handful of watercolor pencils-I am finding those very fun to work with.  So I needed more colors, the ones in my stash are USA made (they looked old so didn't know if still in business)  I searched online and found them at Blick and still USA made so I am happy about that. (no more China products for me if I have a choice)

 



  So I am thrilled to find these I bought their 24 pencil set which was on sale which covered the cost of the taxes and shipping so pleased with that. They were less expensive at Blick then on Amazon

  I had asked Valerie if I could use one of her photos as a reference for a painting. Thank you so much Valerie. This was a castle wall with flowers growing in the bricks. I couldn't wait til I had more colors so I just went for it with the few pencils I had.  My creative muse has arrived-stress mostly gone (finally)
  I forgot again to cut off the inch of mixed media paper first to fit in my journal, but I was able to cut that off after I painted this and it still looks great. I love it, but will paint this again once I get the new colors. (I only had black, blue, green, and a yellow)
  I will submit this piece for Mia's flower theme over at AJJ too

all photos will enlarge just click on them

I am really happy with this piece. I don't know if I captured that this is a brick wall or not though?-I plan to look for a you tube video before I try this again.

   Over the weekend I finished up with the roving I was working on and started with the blue roving-I had bought these as Yellowstone Park inspired colors and want to weave some sort of garment with them.

  You can see my Sunday afternoon mango margarita there on the coffee table too.

Isn't this blue pretty-I bought it to reflect the prismatic springs there in Yellowstone

Here is another photo of my margarita

We had rain off and on over the weekend and today (Monday) too. Lots of bird activity to watch-more baby ducks, herons, the pair of eagles flew in today too.

The water was really choppy when we spotted this family-the waves were tossing them about

  I grabbed the camera this afternoon and took a few photos of the pretty iris's that are blooming here now. We didn't see most of these last year as we were not living here full time yet.

and the peonies are blooming now too
    This is a road we started making so Larry can drive his Snapper down the hill to the lake for fishing-instead of walking down-this area is really steep

I also picked up one of the books that Erika shared. I love reading books with  recipes and this one intrigued me as it is located in an area pretty secluded and I think was part of Scotland or still is-I just started reading it. Thanks Erika



I will close with a very happy dandelion-I love dandelions and with all the rain they are still growing here

Husband is progressing well-he is pushing himself allot-still very painful (he does Not take pain medicine) but he is out of the wheel chair, and uses one crutch or his cane for balance now.

Happy T everyone

T Stands for Tuesday & TIOT and Painting & Spinning Yellowstone

  Hi everyone, with this virus concerning all of us, the last couple of weeks have dragged on for me, when before the time went by too fast it seemed.
   This all has stressed me out, I have stopped watching all news except for when the President and his health team speaks live. and I am staying away from reading much on facebook now-it has gotten to be too negative and really just too much and too many untruths as well. One has to work hard to search out the truth these days-sad.

   I hope everyone had a lovely Easter despite those of you that usually enjoy your large family groups. and Passover as well.

  And my heart goes out to all of those in harms way from the tornados last night.

  It's a new week and I am working on getting things accomplished-opposed to Not haha.
   Today we gather with friends for T with our hostess Bleubeard and Elizabeth. You are most welcome to join us, only requirement is to share a drink related photo.

  I think I may have forgotten to share last week, that Bluprint has all of their instructional videos for free. (I don't know if this is for everyone or just the USA) I think this goes til the 16th.
     They have all sorts of craft and art topics. I have watched several acrylic painting videos my favorite being from the artist Reid he has two classses one on painting water, and another in depth video about trees.
   I had purchased a wet palate set up and I really like it-keeps my paints damp for a week or more, and this artist has a large one that he loves using too-so I was happy to know someone else that likes this set up.

  I just finished a journal page painting this morning. I used a birthday card for my inspiration. I have worked on this piece for several days now.
    As I got into this painting,  I discovered I had for sure bit off a bit much for my current painting talents haha. I did stick with it though and got a finish.
   I only painted the one butterfly as I wasn't real happy with the one I did and didn't want to do more.  I think I wasn't in the mood to practice painting butterflies first.  With any of my art I always just "do it" and never sample or practice first.  I like this well enough to share at Try it on Tuesday where the theme is Beauty of Nature and also sharing on friday for Paint Party Friday
Inspiration-from a birthday card
  (All photos will enlarge just click on them)

  

Here is my drink reference-a cup of my coffee

   I am happy I finished this piece but not sure if some of the flowers make any sense-lol wanted to show movement with the wind as well.

For our Easter meal I found slices of ham in the freezer, and I prepared some frozen green beans with fresh mushrooms and red onion-I really liked this dish sauted in a cast iron skillet. I also steamed sweet potatoes.  and I spent the morning first baking two yellow angel food cakes. My Grandma always called this cake that but I have since learned it is also named a Hummingbird cake.

I made a wheat and a gluten free cake

   The cake in front is the gluten free cake which does not rise as high, but this one turned out really delicious.

                                   Wheat cake

                                     Gluten free cake

                               I found these lovely fresh very large strawberries when I went food shopping last week Tuesday

I was playing around with my camera and discovered the date stamp-I decided I didn't like it as too large and distracting so have since deleted that feature.

   Last Tuesday and Wednesday I did try painting the chairs and tables. I got several primed and then when I went to use the hammered rust oleum it came out of the can horrible-like it would not mix together. These were very expensive cans of paints that I had bought late last fall but I kept them in the house-so was not happy. Larry had a small can of professional grade black enamel rust oleum that he thought would be especially nice for the tables-well it was til I accidently knocked my paint over and watched it all run down the hill-ugh   I did go to the hardware store near us and they had everything rust oleum except for this enamel-so this has put a stop to my tables and chairs project until I fill comfortable to go to a big box store like Lowes. That will be awhile sigh.

   My lilacs are beginning to bloom today, there are two small bushes here

Very very cold and windy today-as you can see in the flowers

Do any of you know what this plant is? it is a wood vine that is growing on part of this stone wall

I spun a little over the weekend-it always calms me. This is more of my Yellowstone inspired rovings.

  Husband and I have been on a chocolate splurge haha happy feel good food. I picked up mounds coconut minis, and York's dark mint chocolate mini's in the egg shape-these are in a candy jar with Hershey's dark chocolate kisses. So if we need a little lift we just need to walk by the candy jars haha So please help yourself

Oh, and I found a lawn service. Happy Dancing!!
     I had someone come out last Friday-he was just a No.
Then I found someone from this area that does this for a living with his father, he came out today and turns out he services someone he said 4-5 houses down from me, so if he can come out the same week for the both of us he can keep the price down. I chatted with him for at least 15-20 minutes and I am so thankful-he sounds perfect. My grass is really getting tall here too-he will be out mid week.

So on a happy note--Happy T hugs to all of you my dear friends in my computer. Hope you are all safe and not going stir crazy in your isolation. Good thing many of us have our art and other activities we can do at home.